Friday, 8 October 2010

I was so much Older then...

When I was about 12 or 13 I used to have fanciful dreams of the future. This was, you understand, nearly quarter of a Century before 1984 which was looked upon from that distance with some trepidation as an Orwellian future of flying cars and Big Brother...I wasn't to know that flying cars would still be a dream in the 21st Century and Big Brother would be a tedious TV Reality show.

I used to daydream about the technology though.

I looked forward to a future where I could contact anyone in the World from a small device in my pocket instead of queueing up to use one of those red public urinals with bakelite telephones and a heavy mechanical "Button B" to press if the recipient answered. (And the recipient would normally answer with the name of their exchange and their three digit number!).

I looked forward to a future where I could track my walks and bus journeys on a visual map to see where I'd been and measure the mileage using some all-seeing eye-in-the-sky.

I looked forward to being able to access every piece of music ever recorded from a small hand-held device instead of having to go down to "Discland" to pay 37/6d (£1.75...the equivalent of £4,500 now) for a black plastic disc which was taken home and scratched with a needle on my vinyl covered Dansette 2 valve player.

I looked forward to a facility where I could access all the World's knowledge from a single small device instead of having to have a large wheelbarrow of Encyclopaedia Britannica with me at all times.

I looked forward to a device which would take photographs and show them to me instantly instead of my bakelite Brownie with 127 roll film which had to be posted to Gratispool in Glasgow who sent me tiny glossy pictures 2 weeks later.

Anyway my dreams finally came true in February of this year when I was able to purchase my first iPhone. It's everything I ever dreamed of in a device, although I think it may now be trying to tell me something....

12 comments:

When I was a child, our phone number was Oulton Broad Four Oh. Once, I picked up the phone and was shocked to have a voice say "number please". I slammed it down and had quite a problematical telephone phobia for the next twenty years. I could answer calls, but not make them.

It's just occurred to me that I actually like making calls on my iPhone.